Monroe Race Track was a 1/2 mile harness racing facility that opened in 1908 in Monroe, New York to a crowd of 2,200 people. [1] [2] The first president was Max O. Schaefer, general manager of the Monroe Cheese Company, and later president of the Velveeta Cheese Company. The track became a part of the Orange County Harness Racing Circuit which included Endicott, Middletown, Goshen, and Monroe until 1927, when Monroe was dropped by the circuit and was replaced by Elmira, New York which had just completed construction of a new 5,000 seat grandstand. [2] In 1964 the grandstands were demolished and the track faded into history.
Harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait. They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, occupied by a driver, although in Europe, jockeys riding directly on saddled trotters is also conducted.
Monroe is a village in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 8,364 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area. The community is named not after President James Monroe but an early 19th-century New York state senator.
Velveeta is a brand name for a processed cheese product that tastes like an American cheese, with a softer and smoother texture than non processed cheese. When melted, Velveeta keeps a fully integrated and evenly clump-free liquid texture. It was invented in 1918 by Emil Frey of the Monroe Cheese Company in Monroe, New York. In 1923, The Velveeta Cheese Company was incorporated as a separate company, and sold to Kraft Foods in 1927.
The track course remains in an undeveloped area of the village. It is a contributing property to the Village of Monroe Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. [3]
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant. Government agencies, at the state, national, and local level in the United States, have differing definitions of what constitutes a contributing property but there are common characteristics. Local laws often regulate the changes that can be made to contributing structures within designated historic districts. The first local ordinances dealing with the alteration of buildings within historic districts was in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931.
The Village of Monroe Historic District, also known as the Smith's Mill Historic District, is located in Monroe, New York, United States. It is an irregularly shaped 81-acre (33 ha) area containing 36 properties, primarily residential but with some churches and commercial buildings, in the center of the village, just east of its downtown. In 1998 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Historic districts in the United States are designated historic districts recognizing a group of buildings, properties, or sites by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts greatly vary in size: some have hundreds of structures, while others have just a few.
